Black Mamba

Susan Lawly;
2012

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Working in an accessible realm may be the only true shock left for artists who have spent lengthy careers operating as provocateurs. The sheer amount of time William Bennett spent terrorizing audiences as part of the long-running noise outfit Whitehouse suggested he would be the last person to land in such a place. But, as the 2011 album by his self-styled "afro-noise" project Cut Hands demonstrated, even someone with a fondness for calling songs "I'm Comin' Up Your Ass" is capable of growing old with a certain amount of grace. Afro Noise I wasn't exactly commercial-- Bennett won't be bothering the Top 40 any time soon-- but anyone expecting to hear a saw-toothed desecration of the African music he was citing as a key influence was left empty handed. On Black Mamba, which follows the lead of its predecessor by tying together a collection of new and previously released material, those rough edges are flattened out even further.

The major factor that ties the Cut Hands material to Bennett's work in Whitehouse is in his fondness for the straightforward. There's a sledgehammer-like simplicity to his other band's bludgeoning. Here, nothing splinters off in an unexpected direction, or ends up in a place radically different from whence it came. The standout cut is the title track, possibly the most groove-oriented work Bennett has ever released, where cacophonic beats are driven through carefully plotted tempo changes. There isn't much more to it other than a series of looped drum sounds going to war with one another, but it's an exhausting and exhilarating ride, and one that fully delivers on the promise of the similarly inclined "Stabbers Conspiracy" from the prior Cut Hands album. That we don’t get to return to the feel of "Black Mamba" is a shame, although after years of working in Whitehouse's one-mode world it's perhaps unsurprising to see Bennett taking the chance to stretch out.

A theme that binds both Cut Hands records, and sweeps back to Whitehouse's 2007 album Racket (which bore a barely perceptible African influence), is a series of tracks that bear the name "Nzambi". Here, "Nzambi la Ngonde" and "Nzambi la Muini" consist of washy ambient passages, with both edging away from prickly beginnings by picking up a glassy texture reminiscent of Oneohtrix Point Never. The album oscillates between that kind of rudderless drifting and more layered, beat-oriented work. Occasionally it's a little too basic. "No Spare No Soul" spends too long with a beat echoing in place before Bennett dumps a batch of digital discord onto its second half. "Brown-Brown" is better, subtly building off a fidgety sound source that resembles someone hammering a rhythm out on a skeletal rib cage.

The bulk of Black Mamba is positioned in a more equable place than the album that preceded it, although it might be better received now that Bennett's fans have had more time to adjust to this mindset. Still, a track like "54 Needles" may come as a shock, especially as it's hard not to reach for an adjective like "cloying" when trying to describe it. Whitehouse may be many things, but sentimental certainly isn't one of them. At this point it's better to look at Cut Hands as an entity unto itself that occasionally bears scars torn from a previous life. Tellingly, Black Mamba becomes more robust when Bennett slings one of those hooks into the sound. It's there in the seething pessimism that pours out of "Erzulie D'en Tort" and it's there in the blackout beats that stack up unremittingly on the title track. Cut Hands may find Bennett in surprise user-friendly mode, but it succeeds most often when he gives up the fight against familiar feelings of tension and confrontation.